


we're all going the same way down

by sylphh (icelandicc)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 13:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10309439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icelandicc/pseuds/sylphh
Summary: “Hey, Killua?” Gon asked. Killua saw the words in his eyes before they left his mouth. He'd gotten rather good at that. “Do you think we'll ever die?”





	

Gon’s breath was a white cloud ghosting over Killua's nose and all at once the dusk felt that much colder.

“Hey, Killua?” Gon asked. Killua saw the words in his eyes before they left his mouth. He'd gotten rather good at that. “Do you think we'll ever die?”

Killua looked down at the frost that coated the grass and he couldn't help the smile that made its way to his face. The cemetery trees were black and ominous against the light blue of the fading sun. Killua didn't find any solace in the thought that the sun would return the next morning. There was only a question. The same question Killua found every time he stopped to wonder about such things. Maybe he shouldn't have bothered to start wondering in the first place. It never seemed to do him any good.

“Maybe,” he replied simply, ears red from the cold. “Maybe we’re already dead.”

Gon’s eyelashes pressed against his cheeks as he nursed his cold hands beneath his chin.

“I guess it was a silly question, huh.” The words echoed dully off the surrounding tombstones. Killua pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders and sighed out a breath of air. He picked shapes out of the bits of cloud that roamed what was left of the sky, and silently he vowed to never let Gon's silly questions fall on deaf ears. He turned to the boy, who stood squarely in front of the sun, silhouetted in gold and blue, so dark Killua almost couldn't make out his questioning eyes and the chilled-pink tip of his nose.

“Stupid questions are sometimes the ones most worthy of an answer.” He said. Gon’s shoulders rose and he gave a wide closed-mouth smile, and Killua could feel himself warm at the sight of it.

“Maybe you're right.” Gon said, a new bounce in his step as he rerouted his path through the graveyard. Killua was content to follow, as usual, he realized.

They traced a quiet trail, weaving through rows of graves. Killua wondered absently if any of them were people he'd killed.

“If I die before you, will you bury me?” Gon asked suddenly. Killua blinked at him.

“You won't.” Killua asserted. There would be no argument on the topic. Gon's face took on the expression Killua was so familiar with. Eyes lit up and mouth set in a firm line.

“If I die before you, will you come visit me?” He challenged. Killua felt himself slipping.

“You won't.”

“If I die before you, will you find someone else?”

“You _won't_.”

Killua had acknowledged before that this feeling was dangerous. Surely the acknowledgement was enough, and he could keep ignoring it until it inevitably grew into something too big to ignore.

Gon sunk beside one of the tombstones and brushed his fingers across the faded lettering. Killua relaxed his shoulders.

“Life is short, isn't it.” Gon murmured, half to Killua, half to the bones beneath his feet. A sudden wind bit at their exposed skin.

“Maybe,” Killua said once more. The fleeting lives of the faces in the crowds seemed to Killua like butterflies, floating here and there and out of his reach. Gon was a butterfly, caught between his fingers. Killua felt a sliver of dread uncurl from where it was wound in the back of his throat. He could feel the phantom wings flitting uselessly against his fingertips, petal-soft.

“I don't want to die Killua.”

“You won’t. _We_ won’t. I won't let us.” Because if that's what Gon wanted than Killua would give it to him. It was as simple as that.

Gon gave him that look, the one that felt like he was searching Killua's soul for something to latch onto. Killua looked back.

Death. The only constant. As predictable as life and love.

“If we die, I'll hold your hand.”

Something built up in Killua's chest.

_I guess we've made ourselves a kind of predictable lie, then, haven't we._


End file.
